Cartoon Villain David Zaslav Is Being Roasted After It Was Announced Max Will Be Removing Yet More ‘Looney Tunes’

Update: Warner Bros. Discovery later noted that the classic Looney Tunes shorts had been included in “error” and will not be leaving the platform. Looney Tunes: Back in Action, though, will be removed on December 31.

Looney Tunes was included in error as a title leaving the platform. This is not the case and the show will continue streaming on Max.

— Max PR (@MaxPR) November 28, 2023

Original article: When HBO Max bowed in 2020, it was a paradise. WarnerMedia’s contribution to the streaming game, it offered, among many other riches — DC stuff, Studio Ghibli, TCM, lots from the Criterion Collection, etc. — much from the deep Warner Bros. archives. One of the biggest attractions Looney Tunes. Hundreds and hundreds of classic Looney Tunes. Then, two years later, Warner Bros. merged with Discovery. They got a new CEO, name of David Zaslav. By year’s end he’d deleted half of those beloved shorts from HBO Max’s coffers. Now it looks like he’s coming for more.

Per The Wrap, Max — the awkward name Zaslav gave the streamer earlier this year — sent out one of those press releases announcing what was coming to and leaving from the service in December. Buried in the former was “Looney Tunes,” which was vacating on December 31. Also on the chopping block is the 2003 movie Looney Tunes: Back in Action.

By “Looney Tunes,” it’s likely that means what remains of the classic Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies shorts that made the brand’s name from 1930 into the 1960s. Last year, what was still called HBO Max unceremoniously deleted almost all of the shorts made after 1949. That included such all-timers as Duck Amuck, What’s Opera, Doc, For Scent-imental Reasons, and over two dozen Wile E. Coyote-Roadrunner classics. Only the latter’s debut, The Fast and the Furry-ous, remains.

Zaslav hasn’t only had it out for classic Looney Tunes. Earlier this month the company cancelled the fully finished movie Coyote Vs. Acme, in which Wile E. Coyote finally sued the titular Amazon-like company after decades of receiving faulty products. The film is now being shopped around to other studios.

When the Looney Tunes news broke, many painted Zaslav as a cartoonish villain.

He just changed his name to David Zaslav. https://t.co/urpwsf5GyC pic.twitter.com/aTeGEDsEtB

— Stefan Ellison (@MisterCoat) November 27, 2023

David Zaslav is this dude, but he grew up hating Looney Tunes. https://t.co/ZHipEZ3I1z pic.twitter.com/WaCqULmML2

— Eric Goldman (@TheEricGoldman) November 27, 2023

Others wondered what on earth Zaslav had against Looney Tunes.

— Ryan (@RyanRibbity) November 27, 2023

I need somebody to get Zaslav in the interrotron from fog of war and ask him what the fuck he has against the looney tunes https://t.co/XN7AZcnvcY

— MiSTer Miracle (@thelicoricekid) November 27, 2023

David Zaslav: "BECAUSE THE LOONEY TUNES KILLED MY GRANDMA, OKAY!" https://t.co/x9MfGDRnzs pic.twitter.com/DTKDsQEztO